Digital lighting technologies, i.e. illumination based on semiconductor light sources, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), offer a viable alternative to traditional fluorescent, HID, and incandescent lamps. Functional advantages and benefits of LEDs include high energy conversion and optical efficiency, durability, lower operating costs, and many others. Recent advances in LED technology have provided efficient and robust full-spectrum lighting sources that enable a variety of lighting effects in many applications. Some of the fixtures embodying these sources feature a lighting module, including one or more LEDs capable of producing different colors, e.g. red, green, and blue, as well as a processor for independently controlling the output of the LEDs in order to generate a variety of colors and color-changing lighting effects.
LED light bulbs are being developed as a replacement for traditional incandescent style light bulbs in order to achieve one or more of the aforementioned functional advantages and benefits of LEDs. Some LED light bulbs implement a plurality of LEDs mounted in a substantially planar relationship perpendicular to the rotational axis of the screw cap (the axis about which the LED light bulb is rotated when installing and removing the bulb from the socket). Such LED light bulbs may suffer from poor light distribution performance, especially when utilized in combination with a clear bulb envelope. Other LED light bulbs implement a plurality of LEDs mounted in a substantially vertical relationship parallel to the rotational axis of the screw cap. The LEDs in such LED light bulbs may be mounted on multiple vertically extending faces. For example, such LED light bulbs may include four rectangularly arranged distinct vertically extending faces each having a plurality of LEDs mounted thereon. Such LED light bulbs may suffer from poor thermal management of the heat generated by the LEDs and/or may suffer from limited total power output from the LEDs.
Thus, there is a need in the art to provide a LED light bulb that provides satisfactory light distribution performance and satisfactory thermal management and power output from the LEDs thereof.